Daily Archive
Stories Posted on August 11, 2008
Power play: OEA isn't in the voters' corner
Category: Blocking · State: Oklahoma · Source: The Oklahoman
WHEN it comes to creativity, the Oklahoma Education Association deserves a failing grade. Time and again, the state's largest teachers union has made clear that it cares more about teachers' paychecks, money grabs and the status quo than taxpayers and the state's overall well-being. The latest evidence is an effort to amend the Oklahoma Constitution and force taxpayers to spend millions of dollars more per year on common education. The union has started an initiative petition drive to get the proposed amendment on a 2010 statewide ballot. If the drive is successful, voters would be asked to change the constitution and require lawmakers to fund schools at the regional average in per-pupil expenditures. The change could shift $850 million in state funding to common education from other state services or require tax increases.
Tax hike for new roads fails to get on ballot
Category: Transportation · State: Arizona · Source: East Valley Tribune
An ambitious statewide transportation measure, championed by Gov. Janet Napolitano and a cadre of Arizona’s most powerful interest groups, has failed to make the November ballot. Secretary of State Jan Brewer announced Monday that Proposition 203, the TIME initiative, had fallen thousands of signatures short of the 153,365 needed to qualify. Nearly half of the 260,698 signatures submitted by last month’s deadline were tossed out. “I am very surprised that a ballot measure ended up with over 42 percent of its signatures being invalid,” Brewer said in a statement. “That is among the largest overall invalid rates that I can recall ever seeing from a citizens initiative drive.” The initiative, backed by business and economic development groups, would have asked voters for a 1-cent state sales tax hike to finance $42 billion worth of freeways, trains, buses and other transportation needs.